Fresh Access SNAP Matching Program

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Executive Summary

Fresh Access SNAP Matching Program is a nonprofit in Illinois that stretches SNAP benefits at farmers markets. Shoppers who spend SNAP dollars at partner markets receive matching tokens, up to a daily limit, to spend on fruits and vegetables from local farmers. Neighborhood ambassadors help shoppers use their benefits and learn recipes.

Fresh produce is expensive, and SNAP benefits run out quickly, so families often cannot afford enough fruits and vegetables. Many markets do not accept SNAP at all. A simple match brings families to local farmers, improves nutrition and puts money in the pockets of those who grow our food.

With this grant we will serve about 400 households in Year 1 at 4 farmers markets. We do not enroll households in SNAP, we do not give cash and we do not promise any health result. We promise honest tracking of every dollar, respectful service and money that reaches local farmers.

Our Year 1 budget is about $207,500, growing to about $257,000 by Year 5 as we add sites, coaches and participants. Each year's budget is planned to balance, with a small surplus each year. We have 4 staff in Year 1 (an Executive Director, a Program Manager and two part-time ambassadors) and 7 by Year 5.

We are asking the Heartland Fresh Food Foundation for $60,000 for the Program Manager and the SNAP match incentive fund. Our other income and startup support cover the rest. These numbers are estimates based on the assumptions listed at the end of this proposal, and we do not promise any result beyond what we describe.

Company Description

Fresh Access SNAP Matching Program is a nonprofit organization in Missouri. We are a registered charity with a volunteer board of directors, a written conflict-of-interest policy and a yearly budget the board reviews.

Our mission. Every family should be able to afford fresh, healthy food from local farmers, whatever their income.

What we do.
- Match SNAP dollars spent at partner farmers markets, up to a daily limit, so families get more fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Train market staff and vendors to accept SNAP and manage the match.
- Hire neighborhood ambassadors who help shoppers use their benefits and find vendors.
- Offer cooking demonstrations and recipe cards for foods grown by local farmers.
- Share information about SNAP and other benefits in English and Spanish.
- Track sales and report the money that reaches local farmers.

Our values. Respect for every participant, honesty with families and partners, safety first and a place for everyone who wants to belong.

What we do not do. We do not enroll households in SNAP; we refer them to the state office. We do not provide medical advice. Match dollars can be spent only on eligible food at partner vendors and are never paid as cash. We do not promise any health result. We follow the rules of our partner sites and our insurer.

How we got here. A group of farmers, a nutrition educator and a market manager began offering a small match for shoppers who used SNAP, using donations. Sales grew quickly, and farmers saw new customers. We kept simple records of matched dollars and what shoppers bought. This proposal asks for support to move from a small donation-based match to a steady program with paid, trained staff and the materials to match.

Problem & Opportunity

Fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, and families on SNAP often cannot afford enough of them to meet the nutrition they need.

Cost. SNAP benefits run out quickly, and local produce can cost more than packaged foods at a grocery store.

Access. Many farmers markets do not accept SNAP, and shoppers may be unsure how to use their benefits there.

Safety and trust. Farmers and funders want to know that matching dollars are tracked, fair and spent on food.

Missed benefits. Families who cannot afford fresh food miss the health benefits, and local farmers miss customers.

What we hear.
- A mother says her children want strawberries and she cannot afford them.
- A farmer says SNAP shoppers are some of his most loyal customers.
- A nurse says her patients with diabetes need vegetables more than anything.
- A shopper says the match doubles what she can bring home.

We do not claim that a program can solve every challenge. We believe that a simple match can feed families better and put money in local farmers' pockets.

Products & Services

Fresh Access SNAP Matching Program gives households that use SNAP benefits a safe, welcoming place to buy fresh local food.

How the program works.
1. Partners. We sign agreements with farmers markets to accept SNAP and operate a match.
2. Training. We train market staff and vendors to run the system and keep accurate records.
3. Match. Shoppers who spend SNAP dollars receive matching tokens, up to a daily limit, to spend on fruits and vegetables.
4. Ambassadors. Neighborhood ambassadors help shoppers use benefits, find vendors and learn recipes.
5. Education. Markets host cooking demonstrations and hand out recipe cards.
6. Outreach. We share the program in English and Spanish at clinics, schools and community centers.
7. Reporting. We track matched dollars, shoppers and sales to farmers each month.

What a typical session looks like. Participants arrive and check in with a staff member, settle in together, work on the day's activity in small groups and finish with a short talk about what went well. Staff praise effort, correct mistakes kindly and make sure no one is left out.

Staff. Our ambassadors are neighborhood residents who pass a background check, complete our training and are paid for their time.

Access and fairness. Programs are free. The match is free. We welcome every SNAP shopper and offer materials and help in English and Spanish.

Market Analysis

Who we serve. Households that use SNAP benefits and live near partner farmers markets. Eligibility is use of a SNAP benefit card at a partner market, and no shopper is turned away.

How we estimate need. We cannot count every young person who could benefit, so we plan from what we can see. In our donation-based match, shoppers asked for it every week and the funds ran out before the end of the season. Market managers told us that many more shoppers would come with a steady match. For Year 1 we plan to serve about 400 participants at 4 farmers markets. By Year 5, with more staff and sites, we plan to serve about 1000.

Where participants come from.
- Clinics, WIC offices and social service offices.
- Schools and community centers.
- Farmers markets and vendors.
- Shoppers who tell a friend.

Who else benefits. Families gain fresh food and savings. Farmers gain new customers and income. Clinics gain patients with better access to healthy food.

What the numbers mean. Every number here is a shopper with a bag full of fresh vegetables. We keep our early counts modest and honest so we can do the work well.

Competitive Landscape

What young people can find today, and how we are different.

1. SNAP alone. Helps with food costs, with no match for fresh food. We add a match.

2. Grocery stores. Convenient and less likely to carry fresh local produce at an affordable price.

3. Food pantries. Provide food in emergencies. We build routine access to fresh food.

4. Community gardens. Valuable and limited in supply.

5. Mobile markets. Reach neighborhoods and are costly to run. We work with them.

What makes us different.
- A match on fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Neighborhood ambassadors in English and Spanish.
- Cooking demonstrations and recipes.
- Training for market staff and vendors.
- Money that goes to local farmers.

Why this gap matters. Existing programs do good work, and most serve people who can already pay or who live close to them. The people we serve are the ones left over: they live in the wrong neighborhood, have the wrong schedule or have no one to ask. We are built to reach them.

We have spoken with market managers, farmers, clinics and other healthy food programs to make sure we are filling a gap and not duplicating services. Their letters of support are in the attachments.

Marketing & Sales Strategy

How young people and partners will find us.

Reaching young people.
- Clinics and WIC offices. We will give staff flyers and a named contact.
- Schools and community centers. We will share information and hold information tables.
- Markets. We will post clear signs and train staff and vendors.
- Neighborhoods. Ambassadors will go door to door and to events.
- Word of mouth. Shoppers tell friends.
- A simple website and a phone line with a text option.

Reaching staff and sponsors.
- Recruit ambassadors through community centers, clinics and neighborhood associations.
- Offer an orientation, a background check and training in safety, privacy and respectful practice.
- Give partners a short report each quarter with counts of participants and what they said.

How we decide who joins. We use a simple sign-up form and enroll participants in the order received, with priority for those with the greatest need and for people new to the program. We keep a waiting list when the program is full.

What we watch. Sign-ups, attendance, shoppers served, match dollars spent and how many participants return for a second season.

Operations Plan

How the program will be carried out.

Timeline for Year 1:
- Months 1 and 2 (July and August): Hire the staff, buy equipment and materials, finalize the waiver, consent form and privacy policy with our attorney and sign site agreements.
- Month 3 (September): Sign market agreements and train staff and vendors.
- Months 4 to 10: Operate the match each market day, with ambassadors and cooking demonstrations.
- Months 11 and 12: Report match dollars and sales to funders and farmers, survey shoppers and plan Year 2.

Space. The match operates at partner farmers markets at a booth with signs and tokens.

Safety and privacy.
- Tokens are tracked daily and reconciled by two people, and match dollars can be used only for eligible food.
- Every staff member and volunteer passes a background check and completes safety training.
- Staff work in pairs or in view of others whenever participants are minors or in a vulnerable situation.
- We keep an emergency plan at every site, and participants complete an emergency contact form.
- We keep records private, share them only with a participant's permission or as the law requires and follow a written policy.

Equipment. We buy about $6,000 of equipment once at the start: tokens, tablets and portable card readers ($3,000), market booth, tent and signs ($2,000), cash boxes and secure token storage ($1,000). Later years replace or add a few items.

Staffing. In Year 1 I serve as Executive Director. The Program Manager, paid $42,000 a year, runs agreements, training and reporting. Two part-time ambassadors, each paid $12,000 a year, help shoppers on market days. We add ambassadors as we add markets.

Management & Organization

Janelle Foster, Executive Director. I lead the organization, report to the board and am responsible for budgets, partnerships and reporting. I came to this work as a nutrition educator who watched shoppers walk past the market because they could not afford it. I will complete the training we require of our ambassadors so I understand the program from the inside. (Replace this paragraph with your own background.)

Staff. The Program Manager runs agreements, training and reporting, and part-time market ambassadors help shoppers. Each passes a background check. These positions are part of our grant request.

Board of directors. Our volunteer board includes a farmer, a nutrition educator, a SNAP shopper, a banker who serves as treasurer, an attorney and a market manager. The board meets every other month, approves our budget and reviews our safety plan. No board member is paid, and members with a conflict of interest step out of related decisions.

Advisory partners. A state SNAP outreach staff member, a clinic dietitian and a farmers market association leader give guidance twice a year.

Staffing and pay in this plan: Executive Director, paid $48,000 a year; program Manager, paid $42,000 a year; market Ambassador (part-time), paid $12,000 a year.

Milestones Narrative

Our goals, how we will measure them and when we plan to reach them.

Year 1 outcomes (July 2027 through June 2028):
- Serve about 400 participants at 4 farmers markets.
- Run at least two full seasons and a summer session.
- Have at least 85 percent of participants attend most sessions.
- Have at least 80 percent of participants return for a second season.
- Receive positive feedback from at least 90 percent of families who answer our short survey.

What we count and how.
- Participants enrolled, sessions and games attended, from our records.
- Skills learned and goals met, from the coach's checklist.
- Equipment issued and returned, from our log.
- Participant and family feedback, from a short, confidential form.
We report what we find, including what did not work, and use it to improve.

Growth over five years.
- Year 2: About 550 participants at 5 farmers markets.
- Year 3: About 700 participants at 6 farmers markets.
- Year 4: About 850 participants at 7 farmers markets.
- Year 5: About 1000 participants at 8 farmers markets.

Learning along the way. At the end of each quarter, the director and the board review the numbers and decide whether we are on track. If we are behind, we will adjust our outreach, our sites or our schedule before asking for more money.

After the grant. By Year 5, grants make up about 39 percent of our budget, down from about 60 percent in Year 1, as partners and donors give more. We will keep building those relationships every year.

Funding Request

What we are asking for, and how the money will be used. Our request: $60,000 from the Heartland Fresh Food Foundation for the Program Manager and the SNAP match incentive fund, for July 2027 through June 2028.

The request is spread across these budget lines:
- Personnel: Program Manager salary, $42,000.
- Other: SNAP match incentive fund, $18,000.

Other money in the program. This request is about 49% of our Year 1 grant income. Other grants and the income lines below pay for everything it does not cover.

Year 1 budget: about $207,500, planned to balance with a small surplus (about $8,300 after the yearly wear on equipment). Year 1 money coming in: Grant Revenue $123,500; state Healthy Food Incentive Funding $50,000; health System and Insurer Partners $24,000; individual Donors $10,000. Year 1 costs: executive Director $48,000; program Manager $42,000; market Ambassador (part-time) $12,000; sNAP Match Incentive Fund about $60,000; market Staffing Support and Tokens about $6,000; outreach and Translation about $4,000; evaluation about $4,000; training about $2,000; administration and Insurance about $8,000; about $2,800 a year for the wear on equipment.

One-time startup costs. Startup costs of $13,000 are paid once from startup money, not from the yearly budget: $3,000 for tokens, tablets and portable card readers; $2,000 for market booth, tent and signs; $1,000 for cash boxes and secure token storage; $2,000 for attorney review of the market agreement and token policy; $1,500 for flyers, banners and a simple website; $1,500 for ambassador and vendor training; $2,000 for first insurance payment.

How we got our startup number. The Funding Need Calculator in this plan adds the startup costs ($13,000), the cash the program uses before it balances (about $0) and a cash cushion of about $49,500, which is about three months of Year 1 costs. In all, that comes to $62,500. We start with $6,000 from our founding board and $59,000 in startup support from a community foundation and a hospital partner, $65,000 in all, which covers that amount with room to spare.

The next five years. Our budget grows from about $207,500 in Year 1 to about $257,000 in Year 5. Grants are planned at $123,500, $111,500, $111,500, $100,000 and $101,000 in Years 1 to 5. Other income grows: state Healthy Food Incentive Funding from $50,000 to $82,000; health System and Insurer Partners from $24,000 to $48,000; individual Donors from $10,000 to $26,000. Our surplus is planned at about $8,300 in Year 1, about $9,400 in Year 2, about $10,200 in Year 3, about $11,200 in Year 4 and about $12,400 in Year 5. We grow from 4 farmers markets to 8 by Year 5, adding a part-time coach for each new site.

Savings. We plan to keep several months of costs in savings. The lowest year-end balance in the plan is about $60,200, at the end of Year 1. Some grant payments and partner payments arrive after we bill, so we plan for about $8,300 owed to us at the end of Year 1.

Cost per household. In Year 1, our total costs are about $498 per household served, which includes setting up the program. By Year 5, with more household served and a trained team in place, that falls to about $245 per household.

After the grant. State healthy food incentive funding, corporate sponsors and individual donors grow every year, so grants become a smaller share of our budget. Participants and families share their stories, and businesses can sponsor a team or a season by name. We will look for partnerships with schools and the city that want a safe, free healthy food access option for every child.

Risks and how we will handle them:
- An injury. Certified coaches, proper equipment, groups matched by age and skill, a written emergency plan and insurance.
- A site is no longer available. We keep agreements with more than one site and a plan for bad weather.
- A coach leaves. We keep a list of trained backup coaches and share lesson plans.
- Low attendance. We adjust sites, times and rides based on family feedback.
- A privacy problem. We follow a written policy, use secure systems and train every staff member and volunteer.
- A grant ends. We keep savings and grow partner and donor support each year.

If you are just starting. A new organization can begin before it has its own 501(c)(3) status through a fiscal sponsor: an established nonprofit that receives grants for you and passes them to your program, usually for a fee (commonly around 5% to 10% of the grant, sometimes more; ask before you agree). Another way is to start smaller: one neighborhood, a handful of households and a small team, tracked carefully. Strong results from a small start make larger grants easier to win.

Appendix Notes

Documents to attach with this proposal:

- Your IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter, or your fiscal sponsor agreement.
- Your most recent financial statements and your current year budget.
- A list of your board members and what each one does.
- Signed letters of support from partner schools, agencies and sites.
- Your site agreements and your insurance certificate.
- Your consent, waiver and privacy policy.
- Your safety plan and background check policy.
- Your program outline and schedule.
- Quotes for equipment and materials.
- Resumes for your Executive Director and key staff.
If you don't have any of this yet, no worries - let's continue.

The assumptions behind our numbers (change them in the Financials section to match your own):
- Grant Revenue: $123,500 in Year 1, growing to $101,000 in Year 5.
- State Healthy Food Incentive Funding: $50,000 in Year 1, growing to $82,000 in Year 5.
- Health System and Insurer Partners: $24,000 in Year 1, growing to $48,000 in Year 5.
- Individual Donors: $10,000 in Year 1, growing to $26,000 in Year 5.
- Pay (a full year, per person, including payroll taxes and workers' compensation): executive Director $48,000; program Manager $42,000; market Ambassador (part-time) $12,000.
- Other yearly costs in Year 1: sNAP Match Incentive Fund $60,000; market Staffing Support and Tokens $6,000; outreach and Translation $4,000; evaluation $4,000; training $2,000; administration and Insurance $8,000. These grow between 4% and 6% a year.
- Equipment: $6,000 at the start, then $1,500 to $2,500 a year.
- Startup costs: $13,000, paid once from $65,000 in startup money.
- Participants served: about 400 in Year 1, growing to about 1000 in Year 5. Sites: 4 in Year 1, growing to 8 by Year 5. The match runs on market days from spring through fall, with winter markets where available.
- About 4% of each year's income is still owed to us at year end.
- Tax: none, as a nonprofit.
- Every dollar amount is an estimate. Replace them with your own quotes and real budget.

Startup Costs